The Closing of a Causal Loop
by GroovyKat
Summary: A horrific accident in Pete's world leaves the Meta-Crisis Doctor facing the heartbreaking decision of having to close off a causal loop to prevent the Reapers from destroying the reality that surrounds him. Back on Gallifrey, Koschei and Theta Sigma are tasked with reorienting Koschei's younger cousin into life on Gallifrey after living almost her entire life in Mutter's Spiral
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I can hear you now all pointing toward the unfinished and saying: "Another one? Really? When you've got all that happening?"

Well yes. After taking a somewhat forced sabbatical from writing, and quite frankly struggling to get back into what has already been started (which I will get back to, of course), I thought I'd finally get to the tale that has been rattling around in my head for more than three years now.

Seriously. I've got emails to a fellow writer outlining this idea and wondering if I should forge ahead with it dating back that amount of time!

Thinking that this idea has probably been used multiple times previously, I fought against this idea quite vehemently. It does seem, however, that it is a rather unique shot at the can here, so I figured I'd finally answer to the insistence of that pesky muse of mine and get this tale out once and for all.

As you may have guessed, I do love the timey-wimey stuff … and this will be another one of those timey-wimey style pieces. The Beauty of no known history means that we can play with it endlessly! This story has been thought out to death, and should flow quite happily as I wade through it. I personally love this tale, and I truly hope you all will as well.

Enjoy.

~~oooOOOooo~~

It was a quiet alleyway street where a thin line, a break in reality, fractured the air in front of an old and rusted fire stairwell. The thin line stretched, expanded, and then split into a large and messy black and gold ellipse edged in a deep blue. White streaks of static electrical charges flashed across the black hole as two figures emerged from its depths. Hand in hand, the pair strode into their new reality with smiles on their faces and shared looks of amusement and affection. Their distraction was such that they completely ignored the sucking sound of the fracture closing behind them.

"Well," purred John Smith as he gave his wife a wink and squeezed at her hand. "That didn't go quite as we expected it to, did it?"

Rose Smith, his wife of six years, lifted her free hand to chuckle against the back of it. Her chuckle turned into a yawn, which strangled her voice somewhat as she tried to respond. "It never quite does go to plan, does it?"

He shrugged as he shut off the travel device attached to his wrist, but didn't comment. He knew she had more to say, because she always did. With a smile teasing at only one side of his mouth, he waited.

"I think it would be much more unusual if it actually _did_ go the way you were expecting it to."

That comment drew a smile from him. This was their typical post-adventure banter. It was a conversation they'd had so many times now that it was spoken without falter. It was a very well-rehearsed scene.

"Well," he drawled with a roll in his eye as he lifted his free hand to rub sheepishly at the back of his neck. "It's this whole _Parallel Earth_ dilemma, Rose." He thrust one hand into the hip pocket of his faded blue jeans and squeezed a little tighter at the hand he held within his. "Things happen differently – and _ar_e different…"

"Not _that_ different," she interrupted with a smile across her cheeks. "I mean, yeah, alright, _some _things differ, what with how the whole planet works an' all. I'll give you that."

"And there you go," he interrupted triumphantly. "As I was saying: Different parallel means different worlds and scenarios…"

"But," she continued with a rise of her finger to indicate she wanted him to let her finish before he butted in with a lecture. "But when it comes to the people and the species that surround us all over the universe, well. Not all _that_ much different…"

He scoffed and shook his head. Despite his apparent annoyance, he actually took delight in Rose trying to make sense of it all, at her attempts to trip him up, and really was eager to hear her explanation of the hour … of course, he would then try to counter it with brilliant explanations of his own.

He stopped their walk at the entrance of the alleyway and turned her to face him. He wore a smile of pride, of impending lecture, and opened his mouth to speak.

She got in first and completely derailed the line of conversation he fully believed they were about to have.

"No, John. Not this time." Her voice was playful even though her eyes narrowed in warning. "We've encountered that lot before – in _this _parallel – so you can't go about tellin' me that the reason we got into mischief this time 'round was because they were different to the last time you encountered them in your, like, fifth body or something."

"You sound like you might get mad if I don't say the right thing here," he muttered dryly under his breath. His eyes lifted to hers and his face contorted into a look of contrition. "Are we about to have a marital bicker?"

"I wasn't exactly headin' in that direction." Her expression softened. "Why? Do you want one?"

He shook his head. "Not particularly." A single chuckle shook at his shoulder. "Although I will admit that the making up part is quite exhilarating…" He clicked his tongue and gave her a wink. The cheekiness quickly fell and he let out a long breath. "But please remember that I'm still catching up on things this side of the dimensional wall," he admitted. "A millennia of experience back in Prime with these sorts of characters, who – I will add – do differ from one encounter to another even over there, and I am finding myself tripping on the line between Prime and this universe's bad guy of the hour…"

Rose's eyes lit up with surprise. "Are you _actually_ admitting that you're not quite as clever –" she peeped when she felt the length of his index finger press up against her lips.

"Shhh," he hushed sharply as he looked around to see if anyone around them might be listening. Thankfully the alleyway was clear of anyone who could eavesdrop. "I won't ever admit any such thing," he growled out. "It's a preposterous notion. Really. Me, the _former_ Doctor, not being all that clever?" He huffed. "Or the implication that I am somehow not as clever as him. That's even more laughable. Ask me who's the smart one, Rose? Go ahead. I'll tell you: The one who stands as your husband, who didn't run away, but chose to run with that one adventure he was too scared to ever embark on ever … err…."

Rose chuckled against his finger, but didn't say anything in reply. She blinked twice to tell him to continue, and wasn't surprised when he peeled off and paced away from her a few steps before he spun on his heel with his finger lifted to make his point.

"Anyway. To clarify," he continued with a somewhat strangled voice that suggested that he had held himself short of clarifying something else. "Even if I am somewhat … erm … _stumbling_ over the differences between Prime and here, it still doesn't make me any less clever than I ever have been." He swallowed and lifted his chin proudly. "Which, if I'm being honest, is _very_ clever."

Rose had to inwardly admit to being somewhat entertained by John's rant and let herself smile a little as she watching him through amused eyes. "Oh do go on," she urged him with a chuckle.

He stilled a moment, let his eyes narrow at her cheek, but gave a firm nod. "And I will – "

"No doubt on that."

"None at all," he confirmed firmly.

"Fine."

"Of course it is."

Silence fell between the two: Rose expecting him to continue, and John expecting her to comment further. After a moment of staring at each other with wide and expectant eyes, both of them simultaneously broke out in laughter at the other.

John wasted no time in stepping forward to take his laughing wife into his arms. His own laughter bubbled down into short chuckles as he dropped his chin to kiss against her hair.

"I'm so sorry I got us into that mess, Rose." He sighed. "I probably should have asked them just _which_ Zyronia they were from; Shanzy, or Frenky."

"Shanzy or Frenky?"

"Oh, they're both the same species," he answered with a shrug. "Just from a different planet. A civil war event back, oh, 300 years or so ago forced one group of Zyronians to move their clan to a sister planet on the other side of a shared moon. Out of spite they chose to practice a set of beliefs that were the complete opposite to the ruling clan on the original home planet." He sniffed. "As you can tell, one can get into a wee spot of bother if they mistake one for the other…" He sighed apologetically. "I'm very sorry about that."

She shook her head and lifted her arms to circle them around his neck. There was a tender smile in her eyes as she looked into his face. "Oh, it wouldn't be an adventure if it all went to plan now, would it?" She rolled up onto her toes and dropped a light kiss on the tip of his nose, preening at the happy giggle that sounded from the back of his throat. "And let's admit it: running for our lives is what you and me live for, yeah?"

"Very yeah," he breathed out as he chased her lips to capture a kiss.

Rose evaded his attempt by stepping backward to hold him at arm's length. "I've got a question for you, though."

She pursed her lips and waited for him to tilt his head with curiosity. "I've never asked this before – dunno why – probably because we get all caught up with other stuff before I ask and all…"

"What's on your mind?" he pressed gently in hope that she would actually get to her point so that he could snag that kiss.

She turned and dropped her hand to capture his and led them into a slow walk out toward the street. "Why do you call it_ Prime_?"

"What?" he questioned with a shrug. "The original parallel?"

She paused and turned to face him, halting his progress with a light tug on his hand. He turned toward her with a tilt in his head.

"Why'd you think the other one is the original? Because that's where we're from?"

"No," he sang with a shake of his head. His lip then turned up enough to crinkle his eye. "Although I can see why you'd think that."

"Well, go on."

He took his hand from hers and slid both hands into his jeans pockets. He thrust them deep and lifted his shoulders. "I call the other one _Prime_, because it is. The Prime Universe, that is."

Rose pursed her lips and thought on that for a moment. She then tilted her head and looked at him with the wide eyes of an enraptured student. "But how'd you know that this, or any other parallel isn't the original?"

"Now that's an easy question," he came back quickly. His eyes widened. "But brilliant. Still brilliant, Rose. Always the one to ask the best questions is my Rose Tyler."

"Smith," she corrected with a sigh. "I changed my name to yours, remember?"

"Yes," he answered slowly. "But I do like the way _Rose Tyler_ rolls off my, as you say, rather talented tongue." He waggled his brows at her.

Rose shook her head and let out a moan. When he danced a little in front of her as though he was a bird performing a mating dance, she had to laugh and shake her head. "Don't change the subject, John."

He slumped and rolled his eyes. "Well then don't go about saying that I have a lack of interest and that I'm not _trying_," he quipped.

"Noone would ever say you aren't _trying_," She fired back with a smirk. "In fact, they repeatedly tell me that you're very trying."

His face fell. "That's not the same thing," he deadpanned.

"And you shouldn't change the subject," she warned with a smirk. "So go on. Answer my very brilliant, but also very easy question."

He slouched and rolled his eyes. "As you wish." He cleared his eyes and expression and thrust a hand into his pocket. "Put quite simply: The other universe has the Time Lords in it. None of the others do."

Rose frowned, suddenly perplexed by that answer. "So you're sayin' that the Time Lords only exist in one parallel?"

He nodded his head. "That's precisely what I'm saying."

"But how? I mean all parallels are created from the decisions that we make, yeah? Isn't that what you told me?" She pursed her lips and looked up curiously into his face. "So that'd mean that my decision to travel with you or not should mean that any parallels created from my meeting you would include you."

He purred deeply with pride. "Don't ever let anyone tell you you're not completely brilliant, Rose."

"I don't, usually."

He cleared his throat and looked skyward toward a zeppelin thundering noisily overhead. "Think of the parallel universes all branching out like it's a tree. Each separate universe comes from its own branch, spreading out more and more. Each universe is a leaf on that tree…"

She frowned to consider it, but nodded for him to continue.

"Well, each of those branches have to come from one single little seed." He smiled and inhaled a deep breath of eureka. "Oh! That's a perfect metaphor. A tree grown from a single seed. One small little tiny and almost insignificant dot that births an absolute majestic, monstrous, ever expanding and ever growing maserpiece of –"

"So, you're saying that the home of the Time Lords…"

"Gallifrey," he supplied with a smile.

"Gallifrey," Rose repeated with a smile. "Gallifrey is this nexus point you're talking about that. From your home planet all of reality extends out across the universe."

"The entire constellation of Kasterborous, actually," he corrected with a smile of pride. "Located at the galactic centre of the universe."

"So say your people," she deadpanned

He rubbed at the back of his neck. "Yeah, so say the Time Lords."

"Who have no real proof of that."

He looked around them. "I think the lack of Time Lords inside of this parallel is testament to that, don't you? Notta one around here that can see."

"Isn't any left in Prime, either," she challenged. "Makes sense they wouldn't be here neither. Right?"

A rather perplexed and off-put expression crossed his features. "Right," he drawled. "Never factored that particular little fact into my equation…"

"And speaking of Time Lords."

John lifted his brows and hummed curiously in a request for her to continue. "Hmmmm? What about them?"

"You really never talk about them much…" she asked quickly on a rush – not wanting to waste the opportunity now that he'd mentioned them. "…You know, the Time Lords and Gallifrey."

"Not much to talk about really," he evaded shortly.

"I beg to differ." She licked at the corner of her mouth waiting to see his response to that.

He did as she expected; he pouted a little and shrugged. "Well, we appear to have experienced a rather abrupt change in topic here."

"Yeah, well I think it's an important one," she shot back with a smile. "And long overdue."

He sniffed to disagree. "I think answering your question about parallel worlds and the existence of a single prime universe is far more exciting a topic, don't you?" He looked at her expectantly and hummed questioningly. "Hmmm?"

She shook her head. "No. Actually I don't." She took hold of his wrists and tried to coax his hands from his pockets. She wasn't particularly swayed when he refused to submit to her urging. For too long he'd locked up and shut down whenever the topic of Gallifrey came up. It was about time he did more than just give her the name of his planet…

…She wanted to know more. She _hungered_ to know more.

"Please tell me about your home, John."

He stepped out of her reach and tugged on his ear. His eyes shifted from hers to study the brickwork that made up the sidewalk at their feet. "Home," he hummed. "You want me to tell you about my home. Well. I don't know that you'd know any less than I do about my _home_, Rose. After all, you've lived here longer than I have."

She folded her arms across her chest and slouched to one side to allow her foot to tap with impatience. "If that's what you're gonna go with, John, then I'm going to call you out for your stupidity. There's no way in this or any universe that you can truly believe that's what I meant."

His eyes flashed with annoyance. "Yeah. Well. Like it or not _this _is my home. _You_ are my home. That … that _other_ place…" He coughed into his fist. "Gallifrey. It doesn't exist anymore. And even when it did exist…" He laughed a rueful sound. "It wasn't my home. It became the exact opposite of _home_.""

"I see," she drawled with annoyance. "So that's the answer I'm going to get then?" she growled in reply. "All I'm ever going to hear about it."

He stuck out his lower lip and gave her a firm nod. "Yep."

"So I'm going to get nothing from you at all."

"You are such a clever girl."

"You condescending arse." Rose's eyes flashed with the same level of annoyance that was currently dancing inside of his. "So. Let me get this straight. You know everything there is to know about me, about who I am, who my family are. You stepped back in time, even, to make sure that you were a part of my childhood too – giving me that red bike for Christmas and all. My God, you even held me as a baby, saw my mum and dad get married … all that and more."

He scoffed. "I did that because you wanted me to, Rose. Your wish, remember? You asked me to take you back to see your dad, so I took you to see him."

"You still got to see it," she countered petulantly.

"Not my choice," he growled in reply, the attitude of his Ninth self firmly taking over. "Didn't do domestic at all to that point. Never met a family member, never wanted to. Family Schmamily, cause nothing but problems they do." He laughed deep and dark from the back of his throat. "And to prove my point, meeting your dad caused an absolute paradox, didn't it?" He flicked his hand at her. "Nearly destroyed all of reality."

"That," she croaked out. "That was my fault. Not his."

"Because of him," he reiterated sharply. "None of it would have happened if you didn't decide to save your father. Like I said, the cause of all problems are family."

A hurt expression quickly flashed across her face. "How can you truly say that, John? After everything since then? How can you stand there and tell me that my family are nothing but problems?" she drew in a shaking breath that rattled her bottom lip against her teeth. "What are you…? Are … are you sayin' that you don't want to be a part of my family?"

His frustration fell immediately when he heard that hurt waver in her voice. Immediately he felt remorse and shame at his reactive words. That wasn't what he meant to say … Well, not how he meant it to be taken at any rate.

…Her family and his … they were completely different.

"No, Rose." he replied quickly, rushing to cup his hands on her elbows. "No, that's not what I'm saying. Not at all." His expression calmed and he took on an almost desperate tone. "Rose. I vow to you that getting to know your family – being _part_ of that family – it's the greatest joy I've ever known."

She inhaled shakily, her voice soft. "You sure about that?"

"Very sure," he vowed fiercely. "I've never been surer of anything in all of my lives."

Rose sniffed. "Then why're you denying me knowing about you and your family, John?" Her eyes chased his as he tried to look away. "An' don't you run from me. I'm tired of you doin' that – clamming up and goin' quiet anytime you don't like a subject."

He forcibly pulled away from her, turning away to speak over his shoulder at her. "You don't understand," he growled.

"How can I,?" she hissed in reply, "when you won't open up and help me to understand?" She reached up to touch his shoulder and pulled back sharply when he jerked away from her touch.

His voice was barely above a hoarse whisper. "My home. My family. My planet." He huffed and lifted his head to look at the sky. The croak in his voice told Rose there were tears in his eyes when he spoke. "All of it was taken from me," he admitted sadly. "It's all gone."

"It doesn't have to be gone," she ventured carefully. "As long as it lives in your memory, John. It's never truly gone." She tried to reach him again, and this time when her fingertips touched at his stiffened shoulders, he didn't pull away. "Tell me about it, about _them_. Help me understand. Let me know who you are."

"I am what you see," he said flatly. "There's nothing more."

"That's rubbish," she slid back as she moved her hands to circle around his hips to clasp her hands at his belly and spoke into his shoulder. "You are so much more than nothing. You always have been."

"I'm not who I once was," he acquiesced softly. "When I grew out of a severed hand, I stopped being _that_ man. _That_ me is gone." He exhaled a long breath. "Please let him be gone, Rose. Let him stay where he is in his TARDIS living the miserable and lonely life of an exiled renegade."

"Exiled for what?" she asked against his shoulder blade.

"Oh, Many things, Rose. Many, _many_ things."

"Is that why you left Gallifrey; because you were exiled?"

He let out a frustrated snort through his nose. While usually Rose would drop any uncomfortable subjects by this stage, it didn't look like she would do so as readily this time. He turned inside her arms and set his hands either side of her face as he looked down into her eyes. "I left Gallifrey of my own accord," he revealed softly. "My repeated exiles came later. As did Presidency, if you can believe it," he added with a light chuckle. The chuckle quickly fell. "But my reasons for stealing a TARDIS and escaping through the transduction barrier to travel the universe, they were my own. No one else's."

"Tell me about it, John. Please open up to me."

He growled out angrily and harshly released her face with a rough flick of his hands. "I said no," he seethed through his teeth. "That is a part of my life that I would much rather leave in the past, thank you. If I wanted to talk about it; if I wanted you to know about it; then I would have already told you." He took a step backward, spun on the ball of his foot, and marched a wide circle to face her again. "Take the hint, Rose. Let sleeping dogs and arrogant Time Lords lie."

She wasn't swayed under the glare of his furious gaze. Rose Smith faced down monsters of all sorts on any day. Facing down this pissed off half-Time Lord was a piece of cake.

"And you can certainly be the most arrogant of them all, can't you?" she shot back with her own snarl.

He flicked his hand over his shoulder in a dismissive fashion. "Never claimed that I wasn't," he called back with a definite sniff of conceit. "I'm Prydonian. We're the worst of all of them."

"Pry-what?"

He laughed in an almost evil manner, and turned to face her. "Prydonian, Rose. Part of the Prydon chapter. The most cunning, devious, and _dangerous_ members of my race." He moved in close and stooped to be eye level with her. His voice took on a quieter volume. It fell into the trademark teasing tone that he used when taunting the alien bad guy of the hour. "Be careful, Rose. We're a terribly untrustworthy lot. Can't take your eyes off us for a second"

Rose scowled and used both hands to push him backward. She held off flinching with apology to see him trip and stagger backward to maintain his stand and instead opted to call him a name instead: "Wanker."

He chuckled as he watched her stalk to the front of the alleyway. "Oh now, Rose. Don't talk like that. I know you don't mean it."

The sudden joviality in his voice gave her pause and she spun on her heel. "Are you? Are you makin' fun of this?"

"Yes," he answered with blunt honestly. "Yes I am."

"What the Hell-"

"Oh come on, Rose," he pleaded inside a long suffering moan. "Gallifrey and the Time Lords are not going to be a reason for you and I having a bicker." He opened his arms to invite a cuddle. "So let's just – "

"A bicker?" she interrupted angrily as she fell into a petulant slouch. She folded her arms across her chest and regarded him with wide eyes of disbelief. "You think this is a _bicker_?"

"Well, it's getting pretty close to it."

She dropped her head and gave It a slow shake. "Oh, John." She lifted her eyes and let fury settle into her gaze. "You really are clueless, aren't you?"

His brow lifted. "Hmmm?"

She strode up to him and petted him on the cheeks in a very condescending manner. "Darling. This isn't a bicker. This isn't even an argument. This is an all-out row that is going to end with you sleepin' on the couch until such time that you a) realise that I'm not kiddin' about and willin' to play games with you, or B) for the next year – whichever comes first." She spun again to speak over her shoulder at him as she walked toward the street. "And I reckon that we'll hit the latter before you finally get it in your head that marriage is a two-way street. As in we _share_ … _everything_."

"I see," he breathed out. "Bit like you telling me all about what happened that night you finally left Jimmy Stone for good, am I right?" He snorted. "Oh. I forgot. You don't talk about that, do you?"

She froze in place. Her voice was barely a whisper. "That's different."

"I disagree," he replied just as softly. "My upbringing, and my life on Gallifrey are just as painful to me as your life with Jimmy Stone was to you."

She spun on her toes, hands clenched into fists at her side, and glared at him through tear-filled eyes. "There is no comparison between what that monster did to me, and what struggles you had as a kid!"

"How do you know that?" He shot back in a yell. "You have _no_ idea what I had to endure as a young Lord, and what sacrifices I had to make for the good of the house." His voice lowered. "Just what I had to give up."

"Because you never talk about it," she yelled back in frustration. "I'm not like you, John. I can't go into someone's head and get the information I'm lookin' for when I'm not getting the answers I want. I need _you_ to give me the answers or else how can I know how to help?."

His face lengthened in shock. "What are you _accusing _me of?"

She shook her head and settled her voice back down. "You know what? Never mind. Forget I asked."

He watched her turn and walk away from him. "I have never done that to you, Rose. I would _never_ do that to you … to _anyone_." He inhaled deeply. "Never without consent.!"

She shook her head and walked toward the road. "You know what. Forget about it, John."

"No!" he growled out defensively as he stalked toward her. "You just accused me of _assault_, Rose. How could you ever think I'd do something so … so …"

A multi-syllable word flew from between his lips that Rose assumed was a Gallifreyan curse of some form. She turned to face him, and continued to walk backward onto the road. "Now now," she chided with faux playfulness. "Langua-"

She didn't get the final syllable out. She didn't even yell. But there was a sickening thud as a small, red, Japanese-made car roared down the roadway and slammed into her thigh. John watched in horror as his wife was propelled into the air, her limbs flailing like a rag doll.

He screamed out her name and launched into a run; praying to every deitiy watching that he'd be able to make it to the roadside and catch her fall. There seemed to be a pull against him, time slowed, and he realised with horror that he wouldn't get to her in time. He screamed out to her again as he watched her hit the roof of the vehicle and then cartwheel in the air to the hard bitumen road. Her head and shoulder struck ground first with a shattering crack of bone, followed by the thud of her hip and legs … and then there was silence.

The small red sedan skidded to a stop, but quickly revved up and took off down the street. John only caught sight of it within his peripheral vision as he exploded out of the alleyway and dropped to his knees beside his wife.

"Rassilon, Rose," he called out with a mix of panic, horror, and utter devastation strangling his voice. "Sweetheart, you hold on, okay? You'll be okay."

Oh, but he knew she wouldn't be. Rose, his beloved partner and wife, lay on her back. She was limp and unmoving from the next down. Her eyes were blown wide with confusion and only her head and neck moved as she coughed up mouthfuls of blood.

He took her hand and his and shielded his devastation at the lack of response in her hand to his grip. "Rose," he called softly as his mind quickly worked through the options of calling Triple-9 or simply zapping them back to Torchwood with the vortex manipulator curled around his wrist.

There was no way the paramedics would get to her in time. Travel by manipulator risked further damage due to the pressures of travel.

Rose let out another blood-filled cough. Her eyes stared up at him filled with fright … but terrifyingly no pain at all.

His decision was made. He could see that there was no way she was going to survive this – not with Earth-based medicine at any rate. There was no way in the Universe that he would allow her to die on a blood-soaked, filthy roadway. The best he could offer her was to at least die with the comfort of a mattress underneath her back and her father at her side…

…She was there for him when a car took his life, it was only right that he be there for her when a car took her life from her.

"Just hold on," he pleaded with her as he typed in the coordinates to Torchwood into the manipulator. "I know you can."

He took her blood filled cough as her answering him in the affirmative.

"That's my Rose Tyler," he said with a tender smile as he dropped onto his hip beside her and wrapped his arms around her chest. "Sorry, Rose _Smith_," he corrected. "You've faced off with some of the worst villains in the Universe. You destroyed Daleks, Cybermen, the Dalek Emperor and even the Devil himself." He pressed a button on his wrist to activate the travel vortex. "There's no way that the Bad Wolf is being taken down by a _Honda_."

Although she did nothing but cough in response as the vortex sucked them inside and propelled them through a shimmering, brilliantly blinding tunnel of blue and white, he swore that he felt her chuckle.

"That's it," he purred. "You promised me forever, remember? This is nowhere near close to forever."

Her coughing had waned, but so too was her gasping efforts at breathing. Her body was still limp and unresponsive and he did his absolute best to hide his desperation.

That effort ceased, however, when the tunnel around them dissipated and he found himself in the main medical wing of the Torchwood building. He quickly lifted his head and let his tears flow.

"Help me!" he cried out loudly. "Someone help me!"

Heavy, herding footfalls quickly thundered down along the hallway. It was only a second before the doors flew open and three personnel in light blue scrubs burst into the room.

"It's Rose," John called out urgently. "Help her, she needs help. Please!"

A middle-aged nurse quickly dropped into a crouch at his side. There was an analysis device in her hand and a worried expression on her face as she scanned the length of Rose's body.

"Jesus, John," she breathed out. "What the hell happened to her?"

"Hit by a car," he choked out. "Small. Red. Honda, I think." He inhaled a shaking breath to stave off a devastating sob. "And they just took off. Didn't even check."

"I'm sorry, dear," the nurse said with apology for obviously more than just the hit and run. She looked up to another nurse. "Go and get Pete. Tell him to call Jackie and make it quick." She looked back to John. "I'm so sorry."

"No," he breathed out with a shake in his head. "No, please. Please."

She stood up and motioned to a pair or orderlies. "We should get her up off the floor. We have to at least make her comfortable." She looked back to John, who still held Rose tightly against him. "Come on, dear. There isn't much we can do now…"

"She's the beat of my heart," he seethed through his teeth, refusing to let her go. "You can't tell me that there's nothing you can do. IF my heart's beating, then there's still hope."

The nurse's face fell into an expression of sympathy. "Oh, my precious. In a perfect universe, she could live on your heart alone and survive an eternity."

"Then make it happen."

She put her hand on his shoulder and shook her head. "John, dear. I'm so sorry, but she's already gone."

He shook his head. "No. Don't say that. My heart beats for her… I can't lose her. Not now."

"Let the lads lift her onto the gurney," she cooed as tenderly as she could. "And say your goodbyes to her. Pete should be along shortly. He'll want to do the same."

His anger quickly fell to sorrow. John curled himself around Rose's stilled and bloody form and began to sob. He rocked them both backward and forwards, his nose buried In her temple and wept. He begged for her to open her eyes, chided her for not keeping her promise of forever, and vowed to love her for all eternity. He apologised for their argument and vowed to her that if she would just wake up ad come back to him that he'd tell her everything that she wanted to know…

…Hell, he'd write a book and produce a movie or TV series outlining every single part of his life on Gallifrey.

…If only she'd just wake up.

"Anything you want to know," he chanted. "All of it. No more secrets or mystery."

The heavy footfalls of Pete Tyler thundered into the room. There was a pause at the doorway, and then a horrified gasp. The Torchwood leader, and father in law to the metacrisis Time Lord let out a distraught haunting howl of his daughter's name.

John lifted his head as he heard Pete drop down beside him. "Pete. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Pete nodded with a wince across his face. "What happened?"

John opened his mouth to offer a tearful retelling of the events, but only managed a single word before Rose gasped and convulsed in his arms.

Both men quickly looked down to see colour in Rose's cheeks, and an intermittent rise and falling of her chest.

Pete immediately called for help, whilst John began to plead with Rose to make it through. He leaned down to kiss against her forehead, but found himself instead choking on the acrid stench of Lindos energy that he could see was swirling underneath her skin.

"For the love of Rassilon," John chanted out worriedly. "No. No, no, no no."

"What's wrong," Pete queried urgently as John clutched at the middle of Rose's blouse and roughly tore it open. He gasped to see yellow-amber light swirling under her skin. He looked up to his son-in-law with worry. "What's happening, John?"

"It can't be," John answered with only a whisper. "It's impossible. Absolutely impossible." He tilted his head, hope rising in his chest. "Well. Rose has been known to eat impossible for lunch."

"What are you talking about?"

John's eyes opened wide as Rose's eyes flared open and golden light poured out and over her nose and cheeks. Her hands shimmered brighter, and John was quick to launch forward to push Pete backward.

"Get clear," he ordered firmly. He looked up at the gathered medical staff and waved his hand at them in a gesture for them to leave. "All of you need to back off. As far as you can get. Leave the room is you have to, but for the sake of the stars, don't touch her."

He looked down to speak words of encouragement to the woman glowing on the floor at his knees, but found himself staring into the furiously confused face of Pete Tyler. "John," he warned darkly. "What's happening to my daughter? Tell me what's happening."

John knew he was out of time for explanations.

"Regenerating," was all he could get out before Rose's entire body began to split with golden light. The Fluorescent light tubes above all their heads buzzed and then popped. Vital monitors hissed and then exploded, and the room itself rattled and shook.

John tried desperately to stay close to her, but the shock force of the Lindos energies swelling to peak shoved him backward with enough force to roll him into the leg of a nearby gurney. He held his forearm over his eyes to shield away the intensity of the light, and called desperately to his wife.

Inside two beats of his heart, the lightshow stopped and everything went quiet. John dropped his forearm and moved forward toward the woman panting and gasping on her back the floor.

"Ro-" His call of her name caught when he felt a telltale pinpricking sensation rush from head to toe. Ne second of reality played out in over five, and John knew that he was now fast approaching a critical moment in time. A fixed point. The most dangerous moment in time for wrong decisions or altering outcomes.

Time quickly returned to normal, and John coughed as he let the final shudder tickle at the tip of his toes. Whatever the universe was trying to warn him about, it could wait. Right now, he needed to get to his wife.

He crawled on his hands and knees and prepared himself for the worst. Regenerating was an horrific experience to endure, she had to be absolutely terrified. He grasped her hand before he got close enough to take a good look at her, and thrilled in the way she squeezed in return. Her name was on the tip of her tongue and in the back of his throat when he finally looked over her. That name caught at the sight of familiar long, brown hair, crystalline sapphire eyes, a spray of freckles along her cheeks and the most adorable button nose.

The horrific emotions of devastation and loss shuddered inside his chest as time seemed to tap him on the shoulder and whisper: "Fixed point," into his ear.

Another name fell from his tongue along nothing more than a whisper as scared blue eyes locked onto his.

"Mia."

~~oooOOOooo~~

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or any of the recognized characters within the show. I'm merely borrowing some characters and having a little fun and games within my own little universe here.


	2. Questions

A/N: Phew! There'a a lot to get through here...

I ended up having to break this one into two chapters. It was getting far too long to contain it all in just the one part.

Thank you for the wonderful comments. I hope that you continue to enjoy ... Things really begin to pick up from here.

~~oooOOOooo~~

John couldn't help himself from staring at the face that looked up at him through a terrified gaze. It was a face he knew well … so, _so_ well. It was a face that still haunted many of his dreams – even a century after seeing it for the last time caked in the dust and dirt of battle, streaked with the trail of a hundred tears, inside a darkened and splintered bunker just outside of Arcadia.

He hadn't seen that face for nearly half a millennia before that night … He'd never seen it since…

… Until now.

Thick, dark lashes blinked down quickly over those blue eyes. Once. Twice. Then they held open, full of terror and confusion.

"John?"

That all too familiar, soft and melodic voice sent a shudder down the entire length of his spine, and he swallowed thickly to shake the images of his past.

"Rose," he cooed with a hoarse voice and a forced smile. "It's okay, love. I'm here."

"What happened?" she queried with a wince as she shifted to seek comfort on the cold tile floor. "Why am I on the floor?"

She turned her head to the side in a half-way attempt at rolling herself over completely and stilled. Pete, her father, was seated on the floor against the wall. He was half cowered in place, his expression a mix of fear, confusion, and heartbreak. She spoke his name, but then swallowed it when she saw him flinch and try to back up further. Her eyes were wide upon her father, and her voice was more timid than the universe had ever heard it.

"John?" She panted a couple of times. "What's going on? Why does he seem so scared of me?"

"He's not scared," John assured her with a tender voice and smile as he used the crook of his finger to guide her attention back toward him. His eyes flicked up to Pete and his voice became more firm. "Are you, Pete?"

Pete blinked in rapid succession to clear the fog and the images of his daughter engulfed in flame, and nodded. His voice was hoarse and quiet. "Yeah, I mean no, John. 'Course not."

John nodded and gestured toward Rose with a tip of his chin. "Great. So would you mind helping me help her up, then?"

"Excuse me, _what_?"

John narrowed his eyes toward his father in law. "Gimme a hand," he repeated. "We need to get her up on a gurney."

Rose struggled in his hold and shook her head. "No. It's okay, John. I'm fine." She sat up, felt a spin in her head and let out a small moan. "Oh. Oh, then maybe not."

"Let me help you," he urged her.

She nodded and let him draw her up to a seat, and then to her knees. Her head fell against his shoulder as she fought off a wave of nausea. "I hope someone got the license plate of the lorry that hit me…"

"It was a Honda," John replied without thought, wincing at her gasp. "Oh. Right. You were being facetious."

She remained on her knees and looked up with surprise. "I – I got hit by a car? Really?"

He winced and nodded. "Yeah."

She turned her head off to one side. "Why don't I remember that? Kind've seems like something I'd remember." She rolled her shoulders, frowning as she analysed her movements. "And why doesn't it hurt? It should hurt."

"Uhhhh…"

Her eyes widened with horror. "Oh no. I've been in a coma or something, haven't I? That's why I don't feel any bruises or injury, isn't it?" She clutched at the front of his shirt and stared up into his eyes. There was worry across her face. "How long was I out for? Not too long, I hope. I promised Tony I was going to go to his recital. Tell me I didn't sleep through it. He'd be devastated."

John shook his head and looked over her hair toward Pete as he lifted her to a stand. "No, Rose. You haven't been in a coma. You just…" He exhaled as he tried to consider how to break to her that she had regenerated into an exact replica of the woman who had broken his heart way back on Gallifrey in an incarnation where he only had the one heart to give…

…A bit like now.

And how did she know about that face? He'd never ever revealed anything about any of the Time Lords and Ladies that he'd grown up with or even encountered in his past. Why that face? Why did the universe pick _that_ face for Rose's first regeneration? And speaking of regenerations. How?

His inner musing was interrupted by a soft call from his wife who held the face of his ...

"Why did you call me Mia," she asked him finally; moaning a little when her rump met with the edge of the gurney.

He frowned and shook his head. "I think you misheard," he tutted with a click of his tongue. "Why would I call you by any other name than Rose? Preposterous notion, that."

"No," she sang as she lifted her feet and slowly lay back on the gurney. "I very distinctly heard you say _Mia_."

"Then you very distinctly _mis_heard me," he chided with a smile. "Now, rest up a bit, Rose. Me and Pete need to go find that Honda that hit you."

Rose nodded and lifted a hand to cover off a yawn with the back of her hand. "Come to think of it, I am a bit tired," she agreed. She paused mid-yawn and cupped her hand on his arm. "Just. Just don't destroy him too badly. Leave some for me, yeah?"

He leaned down to press his lips into her forehead. "I promise you, Rose. So for now, please rest. I'll be right here when you wake up."

"Okay," she breathed with a nod as her head hit the pillow. "Love you yeah?"

"And I, you, Rose." He pressed her hand against the centre of his chest. "This beats for you, remember that."

Her fall into slumber was quick. He barely had time to draw back from his lean before she was out cold and breathing out luminous breaths through her mouth.

John inhaled deeply and looked her over for a short moment. He felt Pete move in at his side and let out a worried breath as he pre-empted the question he knew Pete was about to ask. "I'm not quite sure what to say," he admitted softly. "Rose is human, Pete. She's always been human. How could this be possible?"

"You might want to come up with a pretty quick and believable explanation, John," Pete warned quietly. "And quickly. That wife of mine can be very lead footed when she gets word that one of hers in in danger. This is Rose. Fifty miles is going to seem less than ten when she gets going."

"Jackie," John breathed out with fear. "Rassilon. I didn't even think of her…" He scraped his hand through his hair and then scratched at his sideburn. His eyes were wide as he let a series of potential scenarios roam quickly though his mind and exhaled harshly through his mouth in a repeat of the Time Lord deity's name.

Pete set his hand on John's shoulder. "I'd say you've got about fifteen minutes give or take," he warned. "Call on that Time Lord part of you and work it out quickly." He let out a worried sigh. "I'm not quite sure just how she's going to react to this."

John pursed his lips. "I suppose having a daughter that is alive rather than dead isn't going to soften any blows…" He rubbed at his jaw as it tingled in remembrance of Jackie's slap after Rose's curfew was violated by a year.

Pete chuckled beside him. "You know her as well as I do," he said with a pet against John's arm. "I'll leave it at that and hope that the threat of a slap into the next parallel won't interfere in you reaching any viable conclusions here."

"It won't."

Pete nodded. "Be sure it doesn't," he warned. "I can arrange to have her held up along the way; give you some breathing room; but you know Jacks. She'd have the entire police force on her tail…" He choked with a genuine laugh. "Makes me somewhat glad I didn't make the modifications to her Jag she asked for." He thenbsnapped his fingers toward an assistant, who nodded in acceptance of the unspoken order and then took off down the hallway.

"I'm not even going to ask," he breathed out distractedly. "Now not to appear rude or anything like that, but would you mind shutting up for a moment so that I can think?"

Pete smirked in a way to suggest that he held more than one retort to John's request, but he stayed silent. He merely gave the half Time-Lord a nod and let him get to his analysis. He found it fascinating to watch John when he was scrutinising the quandary of the day and so stood quietly on the other side of the gurney to observe the man in action.

John fairly ignored the scrutiny being placed upon him by his father in law. He let his eyes trail over Rose's new form to take it in in its entirety. His eyes would flash up to her mouth and follow the trail of gold that exhaled through her lips with every second exhale, but they'd quickly go back to task. His hand shifted to her hip and then trailed heavily up along her side to draw her t-shirt up over her ribs. He bit at his lip and winced with fearful apprehension as he dropped his eyes to the skin revealed around his hand. Underneath his palm he could feel a light rise in the skin; only small, barely registerable to anyone who didn't intimately know the flawlessness everywhere else. It was there, though….

…Of course it was.

He closed his eyes. He swallowed. He let his hand slowly shift to reveal the mark beneath. He couldn't bring himself to open his eyes though.

His voice was croaked and quiet when he spoke to the man standing across from him. "Do you see it, Pete?"

Pete looked first up at John, whose eyes were still closed, and then down to where the shirt had been lifted. He could see white skin, reddened at the one-size too tight band of her pale blue bra. There was nothing that he could say was honestly remarkable about where John was indicating. Well. Except for a small series of moles that looked little more than a random setting of blobs.

"What am I looking for?" he asked finally.

John swallowed, but still didn't open his eyes. "A birth-mark," he answered hoarsely. "In the shape of a paw print."

Pete narrowed his eyes and stooped lower to take a closer look. His brow creased in the centre as one cheek lifted in a half wince of analysis. "Well. It'd take a bit of a fetch to say it was a paw print, or anything really," he admitted finally. "Unless you're fluent in abstract and can see something in nothing. All I see are a series of dark brown blobs that are hardly –"

"Oh let me look," John finally exploded with impatience. "I didn't say it would be a perfect representation." His eyes were firmly on the man, and not the exposed skin at his fingertips. "Have a little imagination, will you?"

"Have at it," Pete responded with a smirk as he took a slight step backward and used both hands to gesture toward the spots in question. "Much rather be unimaginative than too scared to take a look for myself," he muttered under his breath.

"I'm not scared," John shot back with a roll in his eyes in a rather obvious attempt at prolonging him having to look at the spot. "Apprehensive, maybe, but not scared."

"Same thing in my book," Pete said with a shrug.

John merely hummed in reply as he let his eyes finally fall to the place in question. His breath held as his eyes roamed the five blobs. Pete wasn't mistaken, nor being particularly unimaginative. They were just five smudged looking blobs of nothing. It had been him, and only him, who had seen the image of a wolf's paw. Wolf….

Oh. Please no.

He held onto his breath as he finally allowed himself to drop his eyes and take in the birthmark. What he saw made him expel his held breath and all remaining oxygen in his lungs. His head shook as he staggered backward and drew in a haggard breath.

"It can't be," he muttered more to himself than to Pete, who was starting to worry.

"What is it, John?" he demanded worriedly.

John's breath drew in and out, in and out, inside loud pants. He continued to stagger backward

His back hit a wall in the centre of the room and he slouched heavily against it. His head still shook with disbelief and his breath drew in and out more heavily. "It can't be. It just can't."

"What is it?" Pete asked with growing panic. "What's going on, John?"

He was half supported by the wall behind him, and leaned against it in a slouching stoop. "It's impossible," he whined as he pressed his back on the wall behind him and carded his hands into his hair. He grasped fistfuls of chestnut and tugged hard on it. "Absolutely out of the realm of any reasonable logic."

Pete frowned watching his son in law. That man defied all rationality and common sense on any day. Right now he was defying even physics as he slouched and leaned on the open air in the middle of the room. He slowly walked around the gurney and made a slow and wary approach. "John, how are you –"

His words caught as he watched John suddenly gasp and press both hands behind him. He shoved himself away and stalked toward the bed with a growl in his voice.

"Oh, of course! How could I be so stupid?"

Pete stopped in place, looked at where John had been, and then toward the man who was now much more focused on the woman lying on the gurney.

"John!" he called out. "What in the blazes, man?"

John did a full spin as he walked, mainly to let Pete know that he'd heard him, but to make sure that his approach on Rose was without an obstacle. "You know, Pete. Galifreyans aren't really all that different to Humans. Oh, sure, we have a mind much more open to leaning and brilliance. We have a natural affinity to feel the flow of time…"

"Two hearts," Pete added. "Respiratory bypass. Telepathy…"

John smirked. "The only natural gift we are born with is the telepathy," John corrected. "The rest we get after we become Time Lords."

Pete remained in the area of the room that John had been only previously. He looked around the area as though searching for the holy grail: up and down, side to side, up and down again. "Before?" he remarked distractedly. "Thought you were born that way."

"You mean brilliant?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of arrogant, but do go on."

John barely registered that he'd heard the insult, but a small smile indicated that he had. "Time Lord is a designation, not a species," he clarified. "We are all born with one heart, and a sensitivity for time and all of her delightful nuances." He picked up a scanner from the table beside the gurney and fiddled with the settings. "But it takes a lot of training, sleep loss, and exposure to the vortex to become fully fledged Time Lords."

"So," Pete queried with a shrug. "All Time Lords are Gallifreyan, but not all Gallifreyans are Time Lords."

John pursed his lips as he ran the scanner up and down Rose's prone form. "That's not entirely true," he replied slowly. "To this point it's only been rumour, but there has been suggestion that other species have the ability to become Time Lords." He pursed his lips and frowned at the reading on the scanner. "Back in my seventh incarnation, I had petitioned for a companion of mine to join the Academy to do just that." His voice quieted a little. "Shame she wasn't interested. It would certainly have aided in her subsequent travels throughout time and space…"

"Rose didn't attend the academy," Pete shot in in an attempt to get the man back on topic. "So how do you explain her being able to do … well…" he pointed clumsily toward the gurney. "Explain that."

"The ability to regenerate is an ability solely possessed by the Time Lords," John answered quickly. "On Gallifrey at any rate. I've heard of other species who have their own methods of cheating death by changing bodies or taking over dead ones…"

"On track, John."

John nodded. "Indeed, sorry." He continued to assess the condition of Rose without looking back at Pete. "Becoming a regenerating Time Lord requires quite a bit of exposure to the time vortex and all of her energies." He smirked to one side and recalibrated the scanning device for a new scan. "It starts with cadets at an early age, and continues throughout our entire academy career. By the time we end the century, we're practically bustling with it." He twisted his head to look down his shoulder at Pete, but didn't direct his focus backward at all. "Am I making sense?"

"A little less than usual, but don't mind yourself. I'm keeping up," Pete remarked with a shrug and a smirk.

John let out a snort of amusement. "As cadets, we were exposed to the Time Vortex little by little over an extended period of time. Obviously, the council felt that prolonging such exposure and leaking the energy into our bodies bit by bit allowed us that additional time to be adequately educated in Time's nuances so that we'd at least have a little control over it…"

"Still keeping up," Pete injected. "But wondering what this has to do with Rose."

John smiled and traced a fingertip down along her cheek. "Rose," he breathed out with awe. "This bull-headed young woman. Well. Taking time isn't exactly a virtue of hers, is it?"

"Much like her mother."

"Very Jackie," John agreed with a smile. "And if you recall conversations we've had regarding my life with Rose to this point, Rose was not only exposed to the time vortex … she inhaled it in its entirety. She took the exposure that we would typically receive over the course of a century, doubled it, tripled it, and then quadrupled it again … and did so over the span of seconds. So whip, bang, boom! Instant Time Lord."

"I see," Pete breathed out. "And you didn't consider this possibility earlier than now for just _what _reason, exactly?"

John went quiet for a moment as he asked himself the exact same question: How could he have _not_ considered that this might be a side effect of Rose taking all of time and space within herself? How could she have had all of that energy and knowledge inside her – quite frankly – magnificent mind, and not have been effected by it?

"I wish I had an excuse," he began with a shrug as he turned to face Pete finally. Any other explanation he had on his tongue was immediately swallowed when he saw the sight behind Pete's head.

Large and bat-like, with a wingspan that spread well beyond the edges of the room, one of Time's Reapers hovered in wait. Its wings flapped slowly as its eyes locked onto John's stunned flared open eyes.

"What?" John breathed out slowly as the creature moved backward and then thrust forward with a sharp flap of its wings. "What are you here for?"


	3. Reaper

A/N: This did not want to end ... Geez ... It just kept going on and on and on ... and no doubt you'll all think pretty much the same thing.

Is it convoluted? Yeah. But when do I write something that isn't.

This takes me away from Pete's world, and so finally I can get into the meat of this tale... It was a hard hump to cross, but I really do hope that I crossed it okay, and that it doesn't bore you so much that you throw up your hands, huff, and say "oh to heck with this crap!"

I promise you that it gets fun from here. It really does.

Please enjoy.

~~oooOOOooo~~

The black winged creature merely flapped its wings in response to John's question. It didn't screech, it didn't even puff air through its nose, it merely kept a close eye on the part-Time Lord and waited for him to figure it all out on his own. And it knew he would. Such a clever boy was this once-was-Doctor.

John, for his part, grit his teeth and clenched his hands into fists as he glared toward the Reaper. "I'll ask you again," he seethed through a curl in his lip. "Why are you here?"

Pete watched on with confusion. He stood directly in front of John, only a few feet away. There was nothing at all between them that should have captured John's attention – or his ire - as it had. He frowned as he snaked his head to try and move within John's direct line of sight. It was fruitless, however, John's attention was well and truly on nothing, and no amount of finger snapping or calling out was going to get that attention back.

Whatever it was that was inside the mind of his son in law, Pete couldn't see nor understand. He would just have to wait it out and see if that lunatic would come back to some semblance of sanity sometime soon.

John was completely ignorant toward Pete's efforts to get his attention. No. He had bigger problems to deal with right now than a confused Human. Time's Reapers weren't beasts that took very kindly to being ignored … although apparently they were very good at ignoring….

"I'll ask you again," John seethed through his teeth. "Why are you here?"

The Reaper's eyes glinted, but it still remained silent, save the light beating of wings as the flapped to keep the beast in flight.

"Oh," John sang with a chuckle in his tone. "I see. You're going to leave it up to me to figure out, aren't you?" He let his eyes drift off the beast to settle upon the furrow in Pete's brow, and then rubbed at his chin. "We're at a fixed point, obviously…" His eyes flicked back to the red-eyed Reaper. "Not that I needed the likes of you hanging about to let me know. Time Lord, remember … Well … half of one at any rate. But that's beside the point, isn't it?" He folded his arms across his chest. Held that stance for only a second and then slouched and lifted an arm to tap his fingertip against his temple. "Felt it up here, oh, at least a half hour before you decided to show up."

He then flicked his hand in a very condescending gesture of dismissal. "So if you don't mind, you can sod off. I've got far more important things to deal with than you lot."

The aggrieved screech of reply from the beast had John wince in agony at the pain it caused in his head. With his eyes pinched and his posture stooped, he finally let his eyes fall upon Pete. Pete, who seemed in no way fearful of a giant bat-dragon creature flapping about and making screeching noises at them.

"Why aren't you scared?" he queried curiously.

Pete's brow flicked high on his forehead. "Should I be?" he asked cautiously.

John's brows lifted and his eyes widened. He nodded as he spoke. "Well, yes. I would say you should be, Pete." He flicked his hand toward the beast that hovered between them. "This is a _Reaper,_" he declared with a measure of caution in his tone. "One of Time's little clean-up crews. Not something to be taken lightly, and not a beast that I've ever been able to defeat without sacrifice."

"Yeah," Pete drawled slowly. "A mighty and terrifying beast."

"Terrifying, indeed," John clarified as he watched the creature through the corner of his eye. "And so you might want to adjust your glib attitude there and take this seriously – because this creature intends on destroying all of reality if we don't do exactly what it wants us to do."

"I see," Pete continued in a wary drawl. "Tell me, John. Were you in any way involved in the hit and run on Rose?"

John gasped. "What are you accusing me of? Of course I wasn't involved in that. Why would I? How could I be involved in anything to disgusting against the woman I love."

Pete's eyes flared. "Ahh. You misunderstand me. What I meant to imply with that remark was: Were you in the same path as the vehicle and did you get hit on the head during the collision?"

"Why would you – No, I did not," he shot back. He then pointed at the gurney. "If I was, then I'd be lying prone like Rose, except a lot less alive than she is." He huffed and rolled his eyes. "Preposterous question indeed."

"Well, I'm askin'." Pete decided to clarify. "Because you're behaving much more insane that is typical for you. You're talking to invisible friends and making wild accusations about all of reality at risk of destruction." He blew out a breath and shook his head. "You're many things, John, but I never took you for an irrational drama queen."

John's shoulders slumped at that. His expression widened to one of realisation and he let his eyes drift toward the Reaper. "Oh. I see. He can't see you, can he?"

"I'm calling for psych," Pete muttered. "You're lost it."

John held up a hand to Pete and walked closer to the Reaper. There was a slight waver in his tone.

"You haven't yet made it through to this parallel, have you?" he queried. "Right now, only I can see you, which means whatever slight against time you think I'm committing, it hasn't quite happened yet," His voice lowered to a low mutter. "We're not exactly there, are we? And obviously, this fixed point directly involves a decision that I have to make…"

"John, what…?"

John carded his hands into his hair and clutched tightly at it. His worry shifted to upset as he held at his hair and looked toward the tiled floor of the med bay. "And it's a big one, right?" He purred out unhappily. "Of course it is. You're the messenger of the universe and if I know anything, it's that the universe hates me."

"Despite you constantly saving it," Pete offered gently, intrigue now replacing concern for John's sanity.

John let out a rueful chuckle. "Perhaps the problem, Pete," he muttered as he looked up to his father in law. "I keep interrupting the natural course of the universe, preventing the cull of entire civilisations. At some point she's going to fight back." He let out a long moan as his exhale and looked back toward Rose. There was another exhalation he was ready to make, one that expressed how she'd know the right question to ask right now to put him on the path to working it all out. But, he wasn't able to get the words from his mind to his mouth before a wet thump against glass called his attention back to the Reaper.

John spun on his heel with a scowl on his face, ready to growl out to the beast to give him a minute. His spin continued beyond facing the Reaper, and inside a moment John was looking back at his wife. His face wore an expression of horrific realisation as he stumbled out of the spin.

"Oh no," he managed voicelessly. "No. It can't be,"

Pete stepped forward to query what was wrong, but was halted as John spun again with absolute seething fury in his eyes. "I don't think so," he snarled out through a curl in his lip. "If she's who you're here for, then know this: You, Time, and all of reality have another thing coming if you believe you're taking _her_."

Pete gasped at that. "John," he demanded on a growl. "What are you talking about? Is Rose in danger?"

John held up a hand to Pete to ask him to butt out for now and continued to glare toward the Reaper. "Do you hear me? Not a chance."

The Reaper screeched loudly in response and flew against the wall between realities. It pulled back and threw itself at it once again.

John threw himself toward the wall himself. He slammed his fist against it and held firm, pressing himself against the wall to being his face as close to the Reaper as he could. "Challenge me, you great menace, and you'll lose."

Pete's eyes shot wide. From where he stood, there seemed to be nothing between him and John, yet he could see the curl in John's fingers into a fist in the air in front of him. He could see the colour distortion in his skin, and the flattened, squashed side of his fist as though the man was actually pounding against a thick sheet of glass.

Horribly confused, and suddenly startled into fear, Pete strode around to behind John in an attempt to see just what his son in law was talking to. He saw absolutely nothing ahead of John. Nothing at all.

"I don't understand," he breathed out. "I can't see anything."

"You can't," John admitted evenly. "It's stuck between realities right now. Time hasn't yet been broken."

"But you can see it?"

"Time sensitive," he answered darkly. "Until the fixed point has been altered, it can't break through. But because I'm still more Time Lord than Human, I can see this filthy mongrel in all its glory." He inhaled deeply and grinned into the air ahead of him. "I've defeated your kind before," he spoke with victory in his voice. "Well," he drawled. "At least one of us in this room has. You bet your wings I can do it again."

Pete squinted over John's shoulder in an attempt to see at least an outline of what John was seeing, but wasn't able to see anything at all. He didn't like this. He didn't like not knowing if what John was seeing was real, or if the Time Lord had actually begun to lose his mind completely.

The latter really didn't seem outside of the realm of possibility.

"What does it want?" he asked coolly. "Should we just give it what it wants?"

"That _would _be the easy option," John admitted. "However, what a Reaper wants isn't always what we're willing to give." He huffed. "When they appear, it almost always ends up being a sacrifice."

"What are you saying?" Pete queried with rising panic. "Sacrifice as in a life?"

John sniffed. "The last time I encountered one of these…" He gulped. His voice was strained when he continued. "It was _your_ life they wanted."

Pete took an enormous step backward. "Hold on, _what_?"

"Rose and me," he began. "We went back in time to the day you died. Throughout her childhood, Jackie had always told the story of your death, and how you died alone on a filthy street." He breathed out slowly and drew in a short breath. His voice was still low. "Rose didn't want you to die alone. She asked me to take her back to that day so that she could hold your hand so that you wouldn't have to be alone."

"Oh," Pete breathed out with a glance toward the bed. He winced at the unfamiliar woman and quickly looked back to John's back. "And?"

"But Rose being Rose," he continued. "Well. Her heart's too big, isn't it? She couldn't bear to see you die, so she saved you. She pulled you from in front of the car and stopped you from being hit." He kept his eyes on the Reaper, who had calmed somewhat, and tipped his head to one side. "But your death, Pete. Well. That was a fixed point in time. For some reason the Universe decided that _that_ day and time was the exact moment that _you_ had to die." He inhaled deeply. "But you didn't. Rose saved you … Which meant that an entire timeline was set to change."

There was silence for a moment and John's brows pinched with thought. "I never understood it at the time just why your death at that point was so acute to the timelines. I wasn't sure just how your death was the determining factor for such a critical moment in time. Who was it that was so deeply impacted by your passing that it changed not only their life, but time itself?"

"I would suggest my wife and daughter might be impacted," Pete snarled.

"No," John disagreed heartlessly. "Well, yes. Okay. That goes without saying, of course. But for it to be a fixed point that would call the wrath of the Reapers, then the end of your life would have to have an impact on time itself, not just the lives of your wife and daughter. Quite frankly, they mean very little, if anything at all, to the turn of the universe. So why should it care?"

"That's rather callous of you to say," Pete growled.

John shrugged. "I don't make the rules, Pete." He snorted with amusement. "_Rassilon_, I rarely even _follow_ the damn things."

Silence fell for a short moment. Pete staring at the ground, and John, with his eyes locked onto the gaze of Time's cleaner. Finally, the younger of the two men spoke up.

"If I survived back in that universe," Pete ventured. "Then I'd say chances are pretty good that you and Rose wouldn't have met."

John nodded. "Probably not."

Pete's voice was quiet, but full of pride. "I think that we can both agree that she's changed the universe, John. My Rose. And I'm not just saying that as a proud Dad. I'm saying that because she did it all without me. She did it all because I _wasn't _a part of her upbringing. If I was still around, who knows what she would have done instead."

He inhaled, held the breath a moment, and then continued. "But she had you, didn't she? She didn't have me, but she had _you_. Because of _you _that girl became so much more than I or anyone ever expected her to become."

John nodded. "I know. And you have no idea how impressed I am that you' managed to work it out like that." He sighed. "And you're right. You're so right. The universe is as it is today because of Rose." He laughed shortly. "Well. Me too, if I'm being honest. I'm who I am because of Rose. I _exist _because of Rose. Without her …" He looked back at the bed. "Why, without Rose, I'd be…"

John's eyes widened and sad realisation fell across his features. He looked back toward the Reaper, who actually seemed to smile in the knowledge that John had worked out the reason for its presence.

"It's her, isn't it?" He asked quietly. "You're here to take her?"

Pete's voice growled loudly from his side. "I don't think so, John…."

John's hand flicked up to ask Pete for quiet. He strode closer to the beast and stared nose to beak with it. His voice was still low and quiet. "She doesn't just look like Mia," he ventured with dread. "She _is _Mia."

The Reaper flapped his wings slowly as though to agree.

John kept his eyes on the beast and struggled to maintain focus as they swelled with tears. "And now I have to send her back, to me." He gulped as a fat tear dribbled from his eye and trailed down his cheek. He inhaled a deep breath in a loud, wet sniff and lifted his head with arrogance. His expression set into a façade of absolute superiority. "Well. I won't. I don't care what harm it has on any time line. I'm not sending Rose to a planet condemned to burn."

The Reaper threw its head back and let out a screech loud enough that it was heard by even Pete. The formerly blissfully ignorant man gasped in horror and contracted into himself with a wince. He held at his mid-section and looked up at John with horror on his face.

"What was that?"

"Oh," John chuckled out with an arrogant smirk toward the furiously flapping beast. "That wasn't what you expected now, was it?" He moved his face close enough that his nose pressed against the invisible barrier. "If you think I'm going to be a pushover on this, then you're making a mistake. A very big mistake."

Pete growled at being so willfully ignored by John. He broke from his fearful stoop and strode with purpose toward the part Time Lord. He grabbed onto his arm. "John! Tell me what's going on. What does this have to do with Rose; and what are we going to do to fight it?"

John's eyes remained on the beast still invisible to anyone else. His voice was low and serious, and begged no argument or question. "Rose and Mia. They're the same person. I'm being told to send her to Gallifrey to follow the path that the universe has set for her."

"Who in the Hell is Mia?"

John snorted and shifted his head to look toward Pete. There was fury in his eyes. "Her full name is Lumeafundorutremelaoakdownmas. Lumea for short, and Mia to me and Koschei." He looked back toward the Reaper, who had at this juncture calmed its fury. It looked upon John with a watchful eye.

"That," Pete began with a furrow deep in his brow. "That's quite the mouthful."

John sniffed. "Gallifrey naming protocols have always been a mouthful." His eyes shifted to the gurney for a brief second, and then looked back toward Pete. "Mia was a big influence in my younger life on Gallifrey. Oh, I was already well into the second half of my first century when we first met, and by that stage I was well on track to becoming everything my house wanted me to become – much to my own chagrin." He looked back at the Reaper. "Rubbish future I had set out before me. I got forced into the Academy, pressured to take the courses that would seat me in decent standing to get myself that prime council position…"

"Doesn't sound like rubbish to me," Pete murmured with surprise.

"Deathly boring," John argued with a petulant huff. "Not that I realised it at the time. Such emotions were turned off in my species." He shrugged. "Part of looming I will suppose. Birth out emotionally retarded offspring who cared so little that free will was all but gone…"

"I see," Pete breathed out slowly.

John seemed to perk up a little as his eyes switched between the gurney and Pete. "But then along came Mia. Fresh from her voyage through Mutters Spiral." He smiled. "And, oh, wasn't she intriguing to a curious boy like myself. Mia caught the attention of more than one curious cadet – let me tell you."

"And how does Mia fit in with who you became, John?" Pete queried putting the pieces together. "What made her so important to the universe?"

"She found the on-switch for my emotions," he admitted wistfully. "Throughout my time knowing her, that woman … Well." He reddened somewhat, smiled, and then looked toward the floor. "She became a far greater teacher than all of my academy professors put together."

He nodded knowingly. "She taught you _how _to live rather than simply _exist_," Pete ventured gently. "Jacks taught me the same thing. Didn't matter what kind've Phd the teacher had, Jacks was always the better teacher."

John smiled with agreement. "Aren't they always?"

Indeed they are," he agreed with a smile. The smile fell into an expression of curiosity. "So who was she to you – this Mia girl?"

John looked back at the Reaper. "She was many things, Pete. So many things to me. Because of her I felt friendship, companionship and love. Because of her I also knew hatred, I knew betrayal. Any emotion you can think of - and that was erased from my people – well, it was because of her that I experienced each and every one of them." He sniffed wetly. "Mia took the rigid, unemotional, and maybe even at times cruel Time Lord and made him into a man." He pursed his lips. "Well. A _man _by Human standards at any rate"

Pete sighed and nodded slowly. "Love does that to a man. It makes fools of us all."

John pressed his lips together and nodded in agreement. He was silent for a moment, bar the thick breathing of an emotional fool. He then inhaled deeply through an open mouth. "That it does, Pete." He snorted. "It also makes a new man of all of us."

"Some in more ways than others," Pete offered. His kind-hearted words fell into serious question once more. "Aside from all of that, John. Why was she so important to you – I mean to have the universe want her like it does?"

John gulped. "Since leaving Gallifrey, I've had some pretty intense involvement in the turn of the universe. Direct involvement. I've influenced the turns and twists of time to change the outcomes of many of time's whims and follies. Call me arrogant and self-important, and even narcissistic, but without my continued interventions we'd have a very different universe on our hands."

Pete nodded. "That I don't doubt, but what does Mia have to do with all this? Was she a companion of yours?"

John shook his head. "Mia never once accompanied me on any of my travels once I left Gallifrey." His eyes flicked up to Pete's. "Pete. Mia was the reason I _left_ Gallifrey." He sharply looked away. "And apart from a chance meeting during the war, I never saw her again."

Pete seemed stunned. "She hurt you…" He paused to look back at the bed. "My Rose hurt you _that_ badly that you left your planet for good?"

"It…" John began with a strangled voice. "That's a very long story, and one I don't believe we have time for right now." He looked over his shoulder toward the Reaper. "And one that really won't matter anyway, because Rose is Rose and she's never going back there."

The Reaper screeched with fury and threw itself at the invisible wall of reality. John watched with a smirk as the beast hit the wall over, and over again, screeching out furiously with each strike.

"Go ahead," he challenged. "You can't break through."

Pete was silently panicked. While he hadn't seen the Reaper for itself, and was doubting its existence beyond John's active imagination, he was now hearing the rage of the beast across dimensional walls. He covered his ears with his hands and winced with each ear-piercing cry.

"John," he hollered out. "John, is that sound what I think it is?"

There was a loud resounding crack, and both men staggered backward as through pushed. Despite basically cowering at the noise John continued to growl out his refusals to cooperate; continued to goad and bait the creature that was trying to break though.

Pete looked up over his forearm, which he'd lifted to shield his eyes, and looked toward the centre of the room. He couldn't stifle a yelp that flew from his chest at the sight of a bright white crack fracturing reality at the centre of the room. With each taunt from his son in law, and each reciprocal screech from beyond the wall, the crack lengthened and grew.

This had to stop, and it had to stop before whatever beast was on the other side finally found its way through. He pushed forward to slam John off balance with his shoulder and loomed over the man.

"John! That's enough!"

The look on John's face could only be described as incredulous offence. He remained in a low and almost submissive slouch underneath Pete's glare and managed to put forth a firm and aggrieved voice. "Was that entirely necessary, Pete?"

The ruckus from the crack between realities had subdued somewhat, but the screeching of the Reaper was still sound out strong. The high-pitched sound made Pete's eye tic. He kept his voice level as he kept his eyes on John, but pointed behind him toward the crack. "I don't know if this means anything at all to you, John, but I am now hearing – quite vividly I might add – the sound of whatever beast is lurking behind that giant crack…"

"You can see it now?" John asked with a cringe in his eye that was angrier than it was fearful. He looked toward the beast with a snarl. "Good, then I'm not losing my mind."

Pete choked. "Are you telling me that you thought you were?"

"Oh who knows?" John barked in reply as he straightened himself up and thrust his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "Just had to be sure."

Pete looked at the man he was truly beginning to wholly believe was undeniably and probably certifiably insane with a look of incredulity. "So you taunting the thing was, what, because you were questioning…"

"Questioning its existence?" he interrupted dismissively. "Well. No. Not really. I know for a fact the damn things exist. I've seen them first hand more than once." He scratched at his sideburn. "Questioning my own sanity after seeing the face of the woman I used to love so, so long ago? Yes. Absolutely."

Pete could do no more than gasp and gape.

"So," John sang out with a clap of his hands. He rubbed them together. "Now that I've been assured that the Meta-Crisis is holding and I'm not about to go into neurological meltdown." He blew out a breath through pursed lips. "Now I have to figure out just how to get Mia back in time to meet my younger self and prevent complete destruction of this and all realities…" His eyes flashed wide as a howling, haunting, whine and wheeze of a juvenile relative dimensional stabiliser in materialisation phase rasped throughout the room.

"Well," he drawled quietly to himself. "I guess that answers that question, then, doesn't it?"

Pete looked first at John with utter confusion in his gaze – as well as a decent measure of argument – and then toward the apex of the sound he recalled from many years before. "Is that _him_?"

John hummed as he watched the very slow materialisation of a thin metal cylinder in the corner of the room closest to the bed upon which Rose Tyler lay. He didn't immediately answer Pete's question, instead he ground his jaw and waited for the final whines of the stabiliser to eke away.

Pete was having none of being ignored. Behind him, there was still screeching from whatever beast lay on the other side of the pulsing white crack in reality. In front of him was a materialising … _something_ … on the bed lay his daughter who now had not only a new face, but a new body, and to his side stood a man who was flipping through emotions so quickly he had to wonder just why he always insisted that Time Lords had none at all.

"John!" he barked finally. "I asked you a question."

John nodded slowly. "And I heard you ask it."

Pete waited a breath for John to continue on that a little further; maybe actually answer the question; and then coughed when John walked toward the cylinder without any further word. His eyes and brows pinched tightly in annoyance and he opened his mouth to ask again for John to stop being ignorant and actually answer him. The words caught, however, when he heard John murmur in a language he didn't recognise.

John lifted a hand to touch his palm to the smooth curved metal. Underneath his palm he could feel the low hum of an exhausted juvenile TARDIS. She'd moved herself here long before she was ready to do so. It seemed that time had poked at her as much as it was yelling at him.

"Do I have to lose both of you in the same day?" he asked tenderly with only a small waver in his tone. "You're not ready for anything like this. Not yet. Not now." He pressed his other hand to the side of the capsule and then let his forehead rest on the cool surface between his hands. His voice fell into a whisper. "I can't say goodbye to either of you. I can't send you back there, not when I know how it all ends."

Pete's anger softened. He still wanted answers, and wanted them quickly, but with empathy toward a man who was spiralling through any and all emotions available to humanity, he let those questions hold just a little bit longer. He did, however, gently call to the man if only to see if he was still functional.

John kept his forehead on the cool metal and closed his eyes. "No," he breathed out. "The Doctor .. or _him_, as you call him … is not here, nor will be ever be here again." He petted the cylinder surface gently. "This young lady is the baby TARDIS that Rose and I have been cultivating these past few years."

Pete's eyes widened, and he took a few long strides forward to take a look for himself. "So?" He touched with ginger fingertips on the surface, and pulled back sharply when he felt the hum of the machine. "This is it? It's ready to go?"

John kept his forehead on the metal, but rolled his head as if in a shake. "No. Far from it, actually." He lifted his head from the TARDIS and wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. He sniffed deeply, and wetly, and thrust his hands into his packets as he took a step backward. "This young girl. Her interior isn't much larger than what her exterior is. There's no console room to speak of, nor any bedrooms, kitchen, library…" He exhaled a breath. "She's little more than a broom closet that has the natural ability to fly through the vortex…" He shrugged. "And even then, for her to land on target, well, that'd be a miracle if she could do it."

"My understanding is that it would have been a miracle if you could've done the same even with a mature TARDIS."

John's lips twitched in a smile. "Yeah."

Pete didn't dare look back behind him at the crack, but he had noticed that it had quietened down back there. He did, however, look toward the bed, toward where his daughter lay.

"So what's the plan from here?" he queried.

All emotion fell from John's façade, and was replaced with youthful jubilancy. "Well, we send them back. Don't we?"

Pete's jaw dropped. "Excuse me, _what_?"

John rubbed his hands together and walked toward the bed. "Well. We don't have much choice in the matter, do we? I've got Reapers on one side, and a juvenile TARDIS telling me that time will fracture if we don't on the other." He shrugged. "Decision's been made for us, hasn't it?"

Pete stalked toward John with a furrow in his brow and a perplexed and frustrated glint in his eye. He pointed back toward the crack. "And so what was all that arguing about then?"

"My last shot at having hope," he replied with a roll in his eye. "But that got shot down pretty quick. Not much I can do about it, so no sense in carrying it on is there?"

Pete growled and shook his head. "Oh I don't think so. You are the supreme ruler of carrying on like a blue arse fly to get your way on things. You are not going to tell me that you've just given up here. This is my daughter…"

"Do you think I don't know that?" John finally growled as he slammed both hands on the mattress of Rose's gurney. "Do you think that this is a decision that I _want_ to make? Do you honestly think for a second that I want to give up Rose and my TARDIS up as easily as this?" He grasped at the bedsheets and tried to steady himself. He managed to lower his voice just a smidge. "When the universe speaks, Pete, we have to listen. We have no choice in the matter."

"There's always a choice, John."

He shook his head. "Not always, Pete. Not always." He exhaled a long and slow breath. "You wouldn't believe the sacrifices I've had to make when Time and the Universe have come knocking. Death. Oh, so much death. And not once have I been able to fight to save anyone." He smiled and looked down. "Well, maybe a couple of people, but their relevance Time demand was nothing. Everyone else, their fates were sealed. Thousands lost, but I could only save a few."

"What are you talking about?"

John looked up, his eyes thick with tears. "The greater good of all of reality, Pete. If you tamper with it, with a fixed point in time, terrible things happen. Sacrifices have to be made, and the path followed, or reality as we know it is completely destroyed." He looked to the face of the woman he loved. "At least this time the sacrifice isn't death."

"But Gallifrey is gone," Pete argued. "Destroyed. You said so yourself. If you send her there, she's as good as dead."

"After spending almost a millennia very much alive," he countered sharply. His voice softened slightly. "Rose – I mean - Mia spent a very long life on Gallifrey. She married a very upstanding member of council shortly after completing her studies at the Academy. She had a child, maybe a couple of them… I'm not quite sure as we lost touch. But I know that she definitely had a granddaughter – that I know for sure." He gave Pete a look of pleading. "She _lived_, Pete. She was _loved_. IA her parent isn't that all you can ask for?"

"I'd much rather she be here with me, with you, with Jacks, and having children and grandchildren here, with us."

John closed his eyes and nodded. "I want that too, but. But I can't. We can't. She has a destiny, and I have to give it to her – despite desperately wanting otherwise."

Pete pressed his lips together and shook his head. "No. I say no to that. As her father, I refuse to allow this."

John actually giggled. "Oh, how adorable that you think you have power against the universe, Pete." He looked back over his shoulder to where he could see the Reaper now patiently flapping its wings in wait. "How about you go and have a chat to Time's messenger through the crack in the wall over there about it. See what kind've arrangement you can come up with."

Pete looked back to the crack with fear in his gaze. He kept his eyes on it. "Are you sure this is the only option?"

"IF there were any other, Pete, I'd take it."

"Promise me," he demanded. "Because I'm going to have to tell Jacks about this…" he hiccuped and shook his head. "No. Jesus, John. How are we? What are we going to tell her? No. Not We. You. _You're_ going to have to be the one to tell her about this."

"I know," John whispered. He stood at Rose's side and brushed his fingertips through her hair. "I'll explain how Rose went back to him. To the Doctor."

"I suppose it's not a lie."

"It's not," he breathed as his fingers touched to her temple. "I know I promised you that I'd never do this to you," he said brokenly. "But, Rose. I have no choice."

"What are you going to do?" Pete queried quietly.

John closed his eyes and danced his fingertips against Rose's temples. "Rose knows nothing about Gallifrey. Nothing of the language, and nothing of the culture." He swallowed. "I have to give her a crash course, and at the same time remove everything she is, was, or would have been…"

"What?" Pete looked horrified.

Tears dripped from the roses of John's cheeks. "She can't know who she is, Pete. If she remembers anything of this life …. Anything at all, then the entire universe would be at stake. You know Rose as well as I do.."

"She'd defy it all…"

"All of it," John agreed sadly. "She can't know. She can't ever know."

He closed his eyes and let his mind flow toward hers. In only a few moments, he had rewritten her entire history, He'd deleted everything that she loved from her mind. He erased Rose Tyler from existence and created Lumeafundorutremelaoakdownmas. A woman perfectly designed to capture the attention and affection of his younger self… who would steal his heart and then break it; not once, but several times, in one and then in two perfectly sculptured bodies.

"Good bye, Rose," he muttered as he separated from her mind and then kissed her brow.

"Is it done?"

His lips still against her forehead, John nodded. "Yeah. Yeah."

"And what now?"

"Now we get her into the TARDIS. I'm sure the young girl knows exactly where to go from here." He pulled back and wiped at his eyes as he looked down toward his sleeping ex-lover. His hands flexed, flinched, reached, and then pulled back. He whimpered just slightly. "Oh, this is so much harder than it should be. I still can't…" He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "But I have to."

After a moment, he slid his arms underneath her body and pulled her into his chest. His lips quickly found the top of her head and he let them rest there as he looked to the capsule. "Pete, can you get the doors?"

Pete nodded. "Yeah, John. 'Course." He stopped just short of pulling them open and looked back to a man who looked as lost as he did determined. "Are you sure this is the only way?"

"Yeah," he whispered with a tear rolling off his cheek and into Mia's hair. "IF there was any other way… Now please. Please."

Pete opened the door, frowning at the tiny interior of a shit he thought should have been cavernous. It looked to be nothing more than an organic wardrobe, a small cave of orange coral no larger than the size of the woman held in John's arms. "Oh, Hell."

"It's fine. She'll be fine," John offered as he tenderly settled Mia's still comatose body inside.

No sooner had he stepped away, the TARDIS doors slammed shut and the whine and wheeze of dematerialisation rang out.

John choked in a sob as he watched the thin cylinder slowly disappear from sight. He spun in place to face off with the Reaper once more. "There!" he demanded. "Are you happy now?!"

The Reaper beat its wing slowly and then turned and disappeared from sight. John ran toward it with a growl and swung his fist to pound one last time on the glass wall. His fist shifted awkwardly instead through air, and he stumbled to keep his footing.

From the doorway, the yell of his mother in law fractured any sounds or silence that had filled the room.

"Was that? Was that the TARDIS?" She screeched out. "Did he come back? Did that bleedin' Alien come back and steal my baby?"

John took one look at a panicked Jackie Tyler and let out a desperate and desolate sob of utter devastation. Unable to face her right now, he took two long strides and left the room. He heard Pete trying to make explanation, any kind of rational explanation, and covered his ears with his hands.

The sound of the TARDIS haunted his mind, and he could hear the whine and wheeze of the machine surround him unrelentingly loud and insistent.

He clutched hard enough at his ears to make them hurt and threw his back up against the wall. He howled a long cry of misery and let himself slide down onto his rump. His head on his knees, ears in his hands, back hunched, he crumpled into a slouch of devastation and sobbed.

He didn't even get to say good bye.


	4. K'anpo and the Message

A/N: Just a short one today. I realized that I had left a huge hole that needed to be filled before I could move on ... I hope that this addresses it

~~oooOOOooo~~

It was the light scent of Schlenk pollen kissing at her nose that finally drew Lumeafundorutremelaoakdownmas from her slumber. It was a pleasant odour, not too overpowering at the moment. Oh, she knew that the blossom's scent has the potential to be completely overbearing when it was nestled inside an entire field of flowers – but no one on Gallifrey would put themselves in such a circumstance…

…Unless one was tasked with working in such, of course.

She smiled and rolled onto her back to extend herself in a long and energising stretch. He soft, silken lengths of uncut grasses tickled at the small of her back where he shirt lifted with the stretch, and she giggled as she curled into herself and tugged her shirt back down.

Slowly, her eyes fluttered open to gaze at her surroundings. Blurred from sleep, but quickly clearing with each blink, her eyes trailed the grass, and the softly bobbing blue luminescent indeo flowers that were native only to the cliffs of Mount Cadon. She looked at the sleeping blossoms of the pink Schlenk flower turned purple from the light of the indeo blooms and smiled as she lifted up onto her hip and curled her legs underneath her.

"I'm home," she sang to herself in a melodic language of rises, falls, and short trills as she tapped her finger on the sleeping bloom. "It's been such a long time."

"Indeed it has, young time child," an unfamiliar and aged voice agreed.

Her eyes widened in time with her mouth long before she thought to emit a peep of surprise that she wasn't alone. And when the peep finally came, it drew a chuckle from her right.

"No need to fear me, Lumeafundorutremelaoakdownmas," he assured her gently. "You sent me here yourself."

Mia lifted her head to lift her gaze toward the shadows as she quickly scrambled to get to her feet. While her voice seemed startled, she wasn't fearful as she saw the old and weathered face of a man standing beside a young cadonwood tree.

"I – I'm sorry?" she questioned with a slight stammer as she rubbed her hands on her thighs and then settled them in a cradle in front of her. "I apologise, but you seem to have me at a disadvantage. You know me, but I'm afraid I don't know who you are."

He stepped out from around the tree's trunk and into the light of the large full moon that shone from the cliff's edge behind her. "No apology required," he said with a chuckle. "In your timeline, this is our first meeting. My name is K'anpo Rimpoche. But in your future you refer to me as just K'anpo, or Uncle – depending on what your purpose is for addressing me."

"I see," she answered with a smile. "My motives are easy to assess, I suspect, in my future dealings with you."

"Indeed they are, child." He dropped a large duffelbag at her feet and handed across a gilded envelope. "This is for you."

"This is a presidential seal," she remarked as she drew her finger along a red and gold wax seal at the back of the envelope. What does the President want from me?"

He gasped when he saw her move to open it, and set his hand atop hers. "No, Lumea. This is not for you to read."

She blinked up at him with confusion. "It's not?"

He shook his head. "No. This is a notice for Cardinal Baxiatel of the House of Lungbarrow," he advised firmly. "Which you are to deliver this evening."

Her brows pinched and her head tilted to one side. "Why am I to be the messenger?"

K'anpo smiled warmly. "Because you told me so."

"Oh."

He walked around the young tree and petted at its trunk as he looked up into the canopy of silver leaves above. "Oh, you are beautiful," he purred. "And you will only grow more beautiful as time moves along."

Mia's brows dropped curiously. "Are you talking to me?"

He chuckled. "To you. To this magnificent youngster here. To the Universe itself." He let his eyes fall upon her. "As to your confusion about your assigned task: There seemed to be a lapse of intelligence and common sense in the events that sent you back home to Gallifrey from your voyage to Mutter's Spiral." He chuckled through his nose. "Which I find rather amusing – but not so unexpected from the individual in question. Rather brash and impertinent since looming, that one. To discover he does not change at all is both endearing and worrying."

Mia blinked, but said nothing as she waited for him to continue.

"But that aside, my child," he went on. "Certain details must be dealt with, and it appears that Cardinal Braxiatel is the best – and most trusted – Lord of Time to bring it all to pass." He gestured toward the envelope. "And so it is that you must deliver this letter to him – as soon as you are able – or I am afraid that time may fracture irreparably."

Her jaw hung a little as she digested that information. She looked down to the envelope and then back up to K'anpo. "So this," she indicated with a flick of the sealed parchment. "This letter carries the responsibility of Time itself?"

"And reality if we must disclose all."

"Oh," she breathed out as she felt the weight of civilisations fall upon her shoulders. "Then I mustn't delay. I will tell Cardinal Braxiatel that this letter is of the utmost importance…"

"There won't be any need for that," K'anpo said quickly. "Just hand him the letter and let him determine that for himself. Though you must ensure that he opens it."

"I will," she vowed as she clutched the letter to her chest and turned to walk down a mountain path.

"Not so fast, child," K'anpo warned quickly. "There are other matters to be addressed."

She spun to look over her shoulder at him. "And those are?"

He eyes her up and down and then pointed to her shirt. "Your attire, child. You cannot show up to a Chapterhouse wearing clothing stained in blood."

"Stained in what?" she looked down at her shirt and gasped. Her hands immediately flew to the hem of the shirt and she pulled, fanning it out to take a closer look. Even bathed in only the light of the moon, it was clear that she wore plenty of blood on her clothing. With horror she looked up to K'anpo with horror and question in her gaze. "What happened?"

"It is my understanding that you suffered a disastrous accident back on a small planet known as Earth."

Mia looked slightly confused. "Yes, I remember spending many, many years on Earth, but I don't recall any accidents of this high a magnitude."

"You regenerated," he answered flatly. "It's likely that regeneration sickness has led to your memory loss of the incident." He picked up the duffel bag and handed it to her. "It's not unusual for a Time Lord or Lady to be unable to recall the events surrounding a regeneration."

"Too traumatic, I'd expect," she breathed out as she released her shirt and took the proffered bag from K'anpo's hand. "A change of clothing?"

He nodded. "As well as your personal belongings."

She pursed her lips for a moment and then relaxed them to wet them with her tongue. "I expect you to tell me that the person sending me back to Gallifrey also neglected to forward along my belongings as well?" she asked flatly.

That made K'anpo laugh. "So says our madam president."

"The current president of Gallifrey is male," she answered back with a brow lifted high on her forehead.

"Indeed," he replied with a wink. "But who knows just who will be appointed President as Time shifts on Gallifrey."

She nodded slowly, with her lips pressed together into a thin line. "I think this is where I stop asking questions and just run with it, right?"

"You are as clever as he says you are," K'anpo said with a laugh. "Now, do run along with you. Time waits for no Lord or Lady."

Not wanting to change in front of a stranger, Mia slipped the strap of the duffel over her shoulder. "Will I see you again, K'anpo?" A smile stretched on her face. "I mean in the more current timelines. It's rather obvious that we meet again _well_ into my future."

His answer fell through a smile. "Oh, my child. I imagine that you and I will meet many times moving forward from here." He looked toward the young Cadonwood tree and then back to her. "There is something about this cliff-face that will draw you here. Of that I am sure."

Her eyes widened with surprise. "Oh. Do you live around here, then?"

"My home is a cave not too far from here," he answered with a blink. "I will never be too far away if you find your new life on Gallifrey a little overwhelming. It is much different to the world you've experienced since your looming so many moons ago."

Mia smiled and looked down her shoulder toward the moon that loomed large over the cliff's edge. Large and luminous toward the horizon, and lit by two suns, the two crescents came together to look like a cat's eye in the sky. She sighed happily. "And what a moon it is."

K'anpo appeared close to speak over her shoulder as she shifted her stance to stand face-on to the magnificent natural satellite. "Indeed it is," he agreed. "Now off with you, child. Follow the path formed by the indeo flowers, and you should find Lungbarrow well enough."

"If memory serves," she said softly. "It should be near Mount Lung?"

"West side," he agreed softly. "Half way up the mountainside."

"That's one mighty walk," Mia whimpered. "And while recovering from Regeneration sickness and all."

"There is a pathway bridge between this mountain and next," K'anpo advised with a sniff. "Built by the original Kithriarch of Lungbarrow, when the house was first seeded."

"You don't seem all that happy about it," she remarked with surprise.

"Well of course not," he replied quickly. "For millennia I had peace and solitude up on this mountain. Once that bridge was seeded by that Lungbarrow fool, that peace and solitude was gone. Now there is all sorts of chatter, natter, and stomping of all sorts."

She narrowed her eyes to listen into the darkness. "It's silent right now," she offered. "In fact I've heard very little since waking up."

He lowered himself down the speak against her ear. "Then you need to listen harder, child," he breathed. "Because the sounds are never ending and as loud as thunder. Hear it, child. Listen. Stomp, stomp, stomp and scurry."

"So many years of silence has attuned you to the sounds not everyone can hear," she surmised through a whisper.

"When you're alone," he said with a voice equally soft. "Then hearing that which others can't becomes your security. It keeps me safe."

She turned to face him. "You're _alone_?"

"I prefer it that way." He made a shoo motion with his hands. "Now please. Please deliver that letter to Braxiatel. He will make sure that you get to Oakdown safely."

"Fine, fine," she chanted with a roll in her eye as she tugged the shoulder strap of the bag up onto her shoulder. She thumbed toward the forest. "I'll just go change first."

He bowed respectfully. "And I will bid you farewell for now, Child. Until we meet again."

She returned the gesture. "And you."

~~oooOOOooo~~

K'anpo had not been incorrect when he had told her the trek to the Lungbarrow house would be shortened if she followed the path of the indeo blooms. Including the time it took for her to change into fresh clothing, Mia has the home in sight within only an Earth hour.

And what a home it was to behold. Like most of the chapterhouses on Gallifrey, it was of arborescent architecture. This particular home was seeded from a grafting of both Cadonwood and Magnolia trees, and the different depths of colour from both trees offered a perfect contrast of white and deep reds painted a majestic image from afar. It stood out proudly through the silver leaves of the Cadonwood forest that surrounded it – a magnificent and regal structure that demanded respect from even the tiniest of creatures.

Mia stood for a moment in awe of the stricture before her. Never before had she seen anything so majestic, and she wanted to behold the sight for as long as she could. There was no telling just how the occupants of this house could fracture the awe she felt right now. A home could really only be as majestic as the persons who resided within.

She'd learned that on her travels across that small planet Earth. Majesty could quickly become ruin in her eyes, and squalor become splendor, just by the heart of the people within. She quite honestly hoped that this would not be the case. This home was too beautiful to be ugly.

She shifted her shoulder to secure the shoulder strap more firmly and made the walk down toward the front door. The letter from a President-future was in her hands, and she was ready to answer time's call and see just what she had in sore for her future.

Returning to Oakdown was a definite plan. She had not seen any of her cousins in at least six –times-a-decade. She wondered just how many regenerations had occurred, and just whether or not any deathdays or loomings had come. Oh, not that there would be any excitable familial reunions of any form. She'd been sent on her voyage almost immediately after looming… None of them would really know her…

…If she were to be honest, she didn't recall any members of the house neither. If asked by anyone, she couldn't even describe the house itself. She felt its existence, of course, but that was about it.

Now that she thought about it, her hearts began to sag. If she didn't know them, then they weren't going to know her. No familial connection meant no familial love. No friendships. No closeness to others.

Oh, this was going to be a very lonely existence for her over the next little while.

Even on Earth, she'd formed bonds with the people. She'd assimilated quite effectively and had companionship of sorts. Her consciousness couldn't immediately call up any names or faces of any of them, but she knew it in her soul that she had connections that ran deeply.

"Regeneration sickness. I'll remember soon enough," she assured herself as she stepped into the front-door vestibule, and lifted her hand to take hold of a brass knocker. She didn't need to lift the heavy brass ring before the door opened on it's own.

She was greeted by a mahogany-coloured wooden statue that towered at least two feet above her. She gasped and took a stride backward. "Oh by the Gods, what are you?"

There was a light laugh from the doorway. "That, my dear, is what we call a Grudge."

Mia swallowed and looked toward the left side of the doorway, and at a well-dressed man who stood with a proud stature. He was – based upon human standards – middle-aged looking. His temples were starting to grey, and his face no longer had the youthful taut look of a twenty year old. He was attractive, most assuredly so, but the glint in his eyes left the question of his trustworthiness open.

"I'm sorry?" she muttered in question after taking a second to assess and analyse the man's appearance. "What did you say it was?"

He smiled and twirled the very edge of his moustache. His analysis of her was very much as fast and as ultimately judgmental as hers was of him. "A grudge," he repeated. "A house, created servant."

"I see," she responded slowly.

He inhaled deeply and exhaled that entire breath before drawing in anew. "I suspect you're here for my brother," he answered on a sigh. "You look like one of his."

"Excuse me, what?"

He ignored her question and looked back in to the home. "Theta Sigma – if that's what you're still calling yourself these days – you've got a visitor!" There was a return call of some form. It wasn't immediately decipherable by Mia, but what it was was quickly decoded by another yell from the man at the door.

"Well, since when do you actually _expect_ to see anyone, Thete?" He called. "They all just show up, don't they?" He looked back toward Mia and looked her up and down. "And dressed like planetary transients and all, the lot of 'em."

A look of insult fell across her face. "I'll have you know," she retorted with a curl in her lip. "This is high fashion where I've come in from." She lifted a shoulder and shifted it in an attempt to look down it toward him with an air of arrogance. "And for your information. I have just returned from a voyage off planet and haven't had the chance to change into what I assume if you consider is appropriate Gallifreyan attire."

A curl of intrigue tickled at his brow. "A _voyage_, you say?" He licked at his lip and shifted his head around to make a decent assessment of what she was wearing: A loose pink hoodie with a front pouch and the word "Roots" blazoned across the front in red, a pair of tight faded blue jeans tucked into a pair of red and white socks that were tucked into a pair of camel-coloured hiking boots.

"Let me guess," he offered with a rub at his jaw. "It would have to be somewhere in Mutter's Spiral; judging by the lettering across the front of your top. The language appears to be…"

"English," an amused voice contributed from the other side of the doorway. "From Sol 3, or Earth," he continued. He then rubbed at his jaw. "Very early 20th century?"

"Try late 20th, Thete," the other fellow offered. "Synthetic fabric wasn't until almost mid-way through that century."

"Are you sure?" Thete replied with his brows high.

"Very sure."

"Yes, well. As I've got little to no interest in that particular planet, I'll have to believe you, then." He muttered. He looked up into Mia's face with his own expression of curiosity. "So. You're here for me? That's curious, because I don't think you and I have ever met." She opened her mouth to speak as he rubbed his jaw, but wasn't able to answer him before Thete let out a laugh.

"Did Koschei send you?" He nodded and looked to the other man. "Brax, looks like Koschei's been giving out our address to random people, again."

Brax's face straightened out with annoyance. "I'll kill him. He doesn't have a regeneration set yet, so it'll stick, but I'm going to kill him. What was it the last time; room for rent at Lungbarrow, apply within?"

Mia looked between the two and finally let out a huff.

"One: You're both incorrect. This is , in fact - early 21st Century, Earth." She drew her fingers down along her sweater. "Canadian, to be exact – I ordered it online."

Thete's brow lifted. There was genuine curiosity in his voice. "Online?"

"Second: I'm not here for anyone by the ridiculous moniker of Theta Sigma," she continued with a roll in her eyes. "I was send here, on a Presidential request, to see a resident of this house known as Cardinal Braxiatel." She held up the letter. "This is for him."

The elder man snatched the envelope from her fingers. His voice took on a condescending tone. "I am _the_ Cardinal Irving Braxiatel. Cardinal being my designation, not my name."

"My apology," she answered with an apologetic tip of her head.

"Accepted," he purred as he broke the seal and began to read the letter. Once or twice, Thete tried to read over his shoulder, and each time, Brax flicked the paper from view. After a moment, annoyance crossed his features and he lifted a hand to smack the back of Thete's head with a flick of his wrist. "You bumbling woprat."

Thete growled and stepped off to one side with a slight cower in his posture. "What in the name of the Gods was _that_ for?" He looked at the letter. "What is the Academy accusing me of now?"

He exhaled a long suffering breath of annoyance and stepped backward into the foyer. He turned and flicked his hangers over his shoulder. "Lumea of Oakdown, come with me." He pointed at Thete. "And you, you great lump of continued disobedience and trouble, go to your room." He let out another breath that sounded like a moan. "Since the day you were loomed. No end of trouble."

"Go to my _what_?" he hollered in return. "I'm not a loomling, Brax, you can't tell me what to do."

"By the curse of Pythia I can," he challenged in a growl as he stalked down the corridor. "Once again, I'm forced to clean up your mess."

"What did I do this time?" he asked. He looked toward Mia, whose eyes were as big as saucers. "Just what have I been accused of?"

"I have no idea," she answered with absolute honesty. "I just delivered the message. I didn't write it."

His eyes pinched with accusation. "And did he just say you were from Oakdown?"

She nodded. "I am."

He shook his head. "My best friend is from that house, and he's never mentioned a cousin by the name of Lumea."

She heard her name, and a demand to follow from down the hallway. She skipped foot to foot a moment and looked back to Thete with apology. "I've been away," she admitted. "So it's likely I haven't been mentioned because I've been very much out of mind for your friend."

"Koschei," he supplied. "His name is Koschei."

She licked at her lip and shrugged. Her name was called again, and she skipped into a jog to join him. "Do excuse me, Thete was it?" she called. "It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Perhaps we'll meet…" She was interrupted by another call of her name, this time full of incredible annoyance. "Uhm. Bye!"

Thete watched her run down the hallway with a rise in his brow. The name of his best friend didn't spark any recognition at all in this woman's eyes. Koschei had used that name for nearly half a century now. Just how long had she been away; and when did she return? Koschei hadn't mentioned anything about any cousins returning from any interplanetary voyages – although he knew that there were a few of them off planet right now.

Ahh, no sense in worrying about it right now. He'd ask Koschei in the morning at the Academy.

Right now he was more concerned by what it was he'd done that had pissed his brother off so much. To the best of his knowledge he'd pretty much behaved himself of late …. Oh … unless it was the thing that happened with that new professor, oh, what was his name….?


End file.
